Ever been canceled?
Several years ago, around the time that I wrote this piece, part of the back story was associated with an email I got from a friend who didn’t like the fact that I was leaving his Christian subculture to join another:
“I must inform you that your decision to affiliate with… is one which I firmly believe both dishonors God and may in fact bring your work as a minister into question, and expose your own soul, and your family’s well-being to spiritual danger. I am convinced…that this matter of the ordination of women is one which is not negotiable in the Bible. I believe that Women’s Ordination touches on every major area of systematic theology: it impacts our doctrine of God, doctrine of Christ, doctrine of Man, doctrine of the Church, doctrine of sin, doctrine of Scripture, etc.”
When I first read his email I had no idea what he was talking about—especially the part about how one’s view of women in ministry was connected with the doctrines of God and Christ. It upset me a bit especially because he chose to blind cc others who then shortly after also wrote me off. After a bit of counsel, I decided to send back a short response that basically said I respectfully disagreed with his assessment but that it was a great, though unexpected, example of why I had switched affiliations. I also went on to share that I desired a place where there was freedom to focus on the majors of the gospel and give charity over minor or disputable matters (e.g. women in ministry, gifts of the Spirit, evolutionary creationism, etc.). I then closed my note by saying that I hoped, despite our differences, that God would help us all better serve Him with faithfulness and integrity.
I later learned that my friend believed in something called ESS or “the eternal subordination of the Son.” It wasn’t until recently, however, that I got a better handle on exactly what ESS is, what it’s based on, and—most importantly—why it’s wrong.
Here’s a simple definition:
The “eternal subordination of the Son” is the belief that “the Son, the second person of the Trinity, is subordinate to the Father, not only in the economy of salvation but in his essence… it grounds the complementarity of men and women on a relationship of authority and submission in the nature of the Trinity.”[1]
And here’s one of the main verses it’s based on:
“But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.”
1 Corinthians 11:3, ESV
Before I close with an accurate explanation of what this anchor verse means, let’s think about why ESS is appealing for some complementarians. Here’s the logic: women should be submissive to male authority because Jesus (like a wife) was, is, and always will be submissive to the Father. To say it differently, obedience and submission was not only God the Son’s role in our salvation but part of his very essence—an essence that is different from God the Father—the One whom the Son submits to. Because my friend held this view, he saw my being open to female leaders in a church—including pastors or elders—as not simply something good and godly Christians have differences on, but rather a “spiritually dangerous” error that “dishonored” God and was a violation of the Trinity itself. Serious stuff. There’s only one big problem: ESS—a view that, to be fair, even many complementarians don’t want to be associated with—is itself a dangerous and dishonoring view that has some similarities to an early church heresy called Arianism. Amy Byrd, in her new book Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, summarizes the problem well:
“The Councils of Nicea, in 325, and Constantinople, in 381, developed and amended the Nicene Creed, which has faithfully served the church in preserving an orthodox confession of faith. We see from these creeds that the eternal subordination of the Son contradicts the orthodox understanding of the Trinity. In upholding the wonder of the one divine being, we need to be careful how we talk of the persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”[2]
In other words, “by arguing that the Son is different in being from the Father [Arius] impugned the full divinity of the son of God…”[3] And that is what ESS does. It makes the Son different in being or essence from the Father.
Returning now to 1 Cor. 11:3, here’s a much better way to handle this passage in a way that is consistent with historic Christianity:
This passage “appears to highlight Jesus’s human role as prophet, priest, and king… [words in bold mine] Though Paul’s intention… is not to disclose the eternal relationship between the Father and the Son, the second order theological reading offered by John Calvin seems compatible with the text. Calvin writes, ‘Let us, therefore, bear in mind, that this is spoken of Christ the mediator. He is, I say, inferior to the Father, inasmuch as he assumed our nature.’ Even if we grant that kephale [head] refers to authority, there is simply nothing in the text that entails eternal submission or obedience.”[4]
For more on this topic, check out this helpful and more technical 11-minute podcast by Dr. Jordan P. Cooper, Lutheran pastor and President of American Lutheran Theological Seminary. Also, next week, we’ll look at a few different views of headship and try to steer this whole topic in a very practical direction. Enjoy your day!
[1] Beth Allison Barr, The Making of Biblical Womanhood (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos) 193.
[2] Aimee Byrd, Recovering from Biblical Manhood & Womanhood (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2021) 102.
[3] Giles, Trinity and Subordinationism, 41.
[4] D. Glenn Butler Jr., The Son Who Learned Obedience: A Theological Case Against the Eternal Submission of the Son (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2018), 187.